JustinSteward.com

Linux, Python, devops, etc

Dokku - The little PaaS that could

19 September 2013

Dokku is a small project put together in a few lines of Bash script, to set
up a git-push based PaaS a la Heroku. It relies on Docker to do a lot of
the heavy lifting, but it's quite an interesting little project, because it's
almost exactly like a project I had all planned out, except someone else has
already built it and it works.

Set up is simple. On a server running Ubuntu 13.04 x64, run the following
command:

Make sure you have a domain name and a wildcard pointed at your server (For the
purposes of demonstrating, let's say, **.sekretcloud.jste.com.au), and make
sure to put the domain name into /home/git/VHOST so Dokku knows what it is.

Dokku handles deployments by using heroku buildpacks, and has a number of options
built in - Python, node.js, Ruby, PHP, and Go are some of the buildpacks already
supported, and the plugin system has examples of setting up postgres and mariadb
databases. In all, it is a fantastic little project I plan to make use of in the
near future.

Oh, and the brain behind it is working on a bigger project with a similar
concept that will probably be worth keeping an eye on: Flynn.io